Alex Lyakhovets

I was born in December 2001 and was raised in Maryland, 25 minutes northwest of Baltimore City. My parents were both born in Ukraine in 1964 and immigrated to the United States in the ’90s. Faith, religion, and God were topics that were never talked about in the home.

Growing up in the public education system with no religious influences around me, I came to think that religion was for weak, stupid people who could not handle the brutal conditions of life. Apparently, I also could not handle life, because I was looking for pleasure and escape in the midst of my suffering and search for meaning. I tried to fill the hole in my heart with drugs, drinking, girls, and partying, but it always came up short. I thought that numbing myself to emotions would be the way to carry on in life, but the pain of the emptiness was too much, and I thought for a while that I would be better off dead.

During this time, I kept searching for truth, purpose, and meaning. After all, if we are just a random accident and there is no true meaning to life, why should I continue to feel pain? One night, after really reflecting on my life, I said to myself, “If something does not change soon, I should kill myself.” The next day, I was going about my life and just kept asking myself, “What’s the point?”

Some hours later, God used my friends, who did not know each other, to help me realize that there is a God and that He loves me and desires me to know Him. One of my friends sent an audio message that told me about God’s love and mercy, and the other friend told me that he was praying for me to have an encounter with the Lord. I believe this is what God used to reveal Himself to me!

Now, I knew that there was a God, but I was not sure which way was the right way to God. Was it Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or another? After hearing the gospel multiple times through an online preacher and my pastor in Florida, I recognized how unique Biblical Christianity is. The Bible says that we are saved by grace through faith and that being saved through grace is the gift (Eph. 2:8-9). The Bible also tells us that we can know that we have eternal life (1 John 5:13) because we have believed in the Son of God.

Other religions teach us to offer our lives to God in hopes of Him accepting us, but the Bible teaches us that our only hope of getting to heaven is by accepting what God offers us, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, who offers the remission of sins through faith in His name (Acts 10:43). This also helps us know that we are going to heaven since Jesus paid all of our sin debt: past, present, and future.

Around the end of September, beginning of October, 2021, I decided to put my faith (trust) in Jesus as the only way to get to heaven! I have peace beyond understanding because I have heaven as a guaranteed promise from God by His Word, so the troubles and cares of this world have become dim now that I know where I am spending eternity.